Just stumbled over this part of a Reuters piece about training the Afghan army:
Amlaqullah Patyani, a tall mustachioed general in charge of all Afghan army training, fears a bumpy road ahead even for his most courageous recruits.
"We have no clue how to operate the weapons that NATO gives us. And even if we did, will the weapons keep coming after 2014?" he asked Reuters at the ceremony, raising a key question about the sustainability of expensive Western efforts to build up Afghan security forces.
One example given by recruits is the complex computer system used to operate Stryker armored fighting vehicles that cost around $4 million each. Many new recruits assigned to master the system lack basic numeral skills and are unable to read the Latin script used inside.
The Stryker is a 20 ton eight wheel vehicle that is not really usable in Afghanistan. Because of that the U.S. is sending its Stryker equiped 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division to Afghanistan without these vehicles:
The Stryker Brigade will go Stryker-less for two reasons. First, the Afghan terrain can’t handle a heavy wheeled vehicle that’s about the size of a school bus. You don’t want to take that thing up mountains or roll it through river valleys that lack paved roads. Second, the vehicle is too flimsy to handle homemade bombs. Unlike MRAPs, the flat bottom of a Stryker absorbs the brunt of a bomb impact, rather than deflecting it.
But that very expensive junk is now given to Afghan recruits who are unable to handle it.
Some fat cat in some U.S. company and the associated House and Senate members will make millions from this U.S. taxpayer funded idiocy.
But however you may see the conflict in Afghanistan it will be of zero value to either side of the real war. That's basically fine with me. Still the utter corruption of the U.S. political system that allows for such stupidity amazes me again and again.